


In There We Stood, Bled Into Something Good

by MelancholyMacaw



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Breaking bad - Freeform, El Camino - Freeform, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Jesse Pinkman - Freeform, Other, Platonic Relationships, Post-Episode: s05e16 Felina, gender neutral reader, living in the middle of nowhere and not the kind of person to watch the news anyway, originally started last year but i wanted to finish it up for a dear friend now that i have time!, you are jesse's acquaintance from middle school, you are jesse's friend i have no idea what else to say, you have Zero clue about the events of breaking bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelancholyMacaw/pseuds/MelancholyMacaw
Summary: The last person you expected to see in the middle of nowhere, Alaska was the guy who used to steal your pens in middle school.
Relationships: Jesse Pinkman & Reader, Jesse Pinkman/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	In There We Stood, Bled Into Something Good

“Hey, man, what do you want? Quit staring.” 

The quiet of the grocery store you found yourself standing in seemed to reverberate and echo, a chill of apprehension turning the air around you tense. The man who was looking at you from across the freezer case paused, his adam’s apple bobbing as he audibly swallowed. He’d been casting wary glances your way over the freezer while looking between two different brands of processed cheese slices, and needless to say, being stared at by a stranger in a mostly-empty corner store was somewhat unnerving to say the least. 

His jaw tensed and he stuttered, looking away almost immediately and tossing one of the cheeses back into the cooler haphazardly. “Ah, n-nah man, ‘m sorry, ya just looked like uh… like someone I knew.” The man cleared his throat and made a point of not looking up at you again before shuffling awkwardly toward the freezer cases against the wall.

You gave him an incredulous look and continued on with your business of picking through lunch meat, but you kept an eye on the man looming by the tv-dinners. There were security cameras and you’d known the owner of the store since you’d moved here years ago, so you weren’t exactly itching to leave (You still had to do grocery shopping, after all), but you still felt a little weird with some dude staring you down. You attempted to push the thought out of your mind and picked through the freezers before moving on through to the cereal, more toward the front of the store until you realized that you perhaps needed a vegetable or fruit. 

With a sigh, you turned around while looking at your newly-acquired inventory, only for your shoulder to connect with another. You gasped as your handful of cheap lunch supplies jumbled from your arms and onto the ground, and you looked up to see the same man who’d been glancing warily at you by the freezer looking like he didn’t know whether to keep walking and just avoid eye contact or not. He didn’t get a chance to make that decision because you took a step back and scoffed, annoyed.

“Dude, what’s your problem? If you’re following me, knock it off, it ain’t cute-” You stood with one foot further back than the other, steadying yourself. 

The man crouched down and grabbed at the groceries you dropped (and apparently the cheese he’d had in his hands as well), stress edging his voice, “Look man, my bad, this store’s like little, yaknow?”

“You were watching me, and you weren’t being slick about it either.”

He dropped your foodstuffs into your hands and quieted, his sigh thin and cut. “Y’look like someone I knew, okay? I wasn’t trying to like, creep or anythin’, yo, I swear, y’look familiar, that’s all.”

You looked at him, perplexed. He didn’t look much like any resident of Haines you’d ever seen; a buzz-cut with no hat, a sun-tan, and an amount of scars that even the police in the town didn’t have. Two across the bridge of his nose, a couple on his cheek and through his eyebrow- the man looked like he’d been sleeping in barbed wire for the past six months and had just now gotten used to it. The only parts of him that looked like they belonged were the cable-knit sweater and the blue of his eyes, and that was just because the color went well with the landscape. 

It was none of this that gave you pause, but rather the tone with which he spoke. 

“Jesse?”

The air around you went totally cold. His jaw tensed and his shoulders cocked, his eyes darting around the store panicked. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about, yo.”

He started to walk away, his eyes glued to the floor and his packet of Kraft singles held so tightly in his hand that it began to bend in the middle and give under the pressure. You juggled the food into your left hand and pushed against his shoulder with your right, making him stop again.

“Dude, you can’t just stare at me while hiding behind a cooler, shoulder check me, and walk off without even saying hi. You almost gave me a heart attack?”

The more you looked at him, the more recognizable features you found. Sure, he looked a little worse for wear, and he was actually wearing clothes that fit rather than baggy hoodies and what you thought were parachute pants, but between the bright blue eyes, the verbal tics, and the fact that he was barely 5 foot 7, you were at least 96% sure that this was Jesse Pinkman.

He stopped, his lips pulled tight against his teeth and glancing around and looking as though he was unsure whether or not to speak. He was squinting at you, still poised to begin walking away when he said, “Ey uh… middle… Harper middle school, right?” 

You nodded, beginning to smile but still a little wary, if only because of how anxious the man sounded, “Yeah, Mrs. Resanover’s homeroom. You kept stealing my pens.”

“They wrote good.”

You chuckled, but the pleasant sound left an awkward absence in its wake, neither one of you moving or saying anything else. 

A voice came from the front of the store, and you saw the wrinkled old face of the owner of the store behind the register, craning his neck and peering at you apprehensively. “Everything alright up there?”

You cleared your throat and waved your hand, “Yes, Mr. Leclaire, everything’s ok! Just sayin’ hi to an old friend.”

Mr. Lonnie Leclaire took your word and sunk back into his seat, but you knew he was still watching cautiously.

Jesse cleared his throat and mumbled, “I didn’t mean ta… ya know, spook ya. But I didn’t want to say anythin’-”  
  
“You wanted to bodycheck me. Just to be sure.” You crowed, but there was a soft smile on your face.

“C’mon, man, ya didn’t used-ta be this mean.” Jesse began to walk again, but stopped and waited as if he expected you to follow- you gladly obliged, your need for fruits-and-or-vegetables long forgotten. He grabbed a box of Lucky Charms in passing and tucked it under his arm.

He glanced nervously over to the register, “He just like that? Or do ya like work here or somethin’?”

“Oh man, you’re new here. Like, really new.” You scoffed, good naturedly enough. “Mr. Leclaire’s the town grandpa. ‘Bout everybody knows him because everybody comes here. Except you, apparently.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I uh… just got set up, doin’ shopping ‘n shit, yaknow. Apartment in Morningside.”

You raised your eyebrows and moved to punch him in the shoulder, but stopped short when he flinched, “Ooooh, fancy! Only tourists rent out of Morningside… tourists and rich people. Are you rich, Jesse-”  
  
“JAMES.” He said emphatically, startling you. “Y-yaknow like uh… the tv-show. The fuckin’ uhhh… y-you know, the Pokemon? Like Jessie and James and their weird cat. That’s what they called us in middle school, yo, like Jessie and James.”

The way he spoke was robotic, like he was speaking more for show. You figured it was the latter, since people most definitely did not call you Jessie and James in middle school. Mr. Leclaire was looking from you to Jesse, bewildered more than anything. He turned his eyes to you expectantly; you hadn’t noticed that Jesse had already checked out.

“This all?”

It took you a moment to reply but eventually you nodded and handed him your lunch meat, chips, coffee, etcetera, a little bit thrown but otherwise fine. Jesse had become tense and was staring blankly at the 5-Hour Energy on the counter, now pressing down on his cereal so hard that you could hear the marshmallows creaking, but he waited for you to check out rather than leaving.

You loaded your goods into a big paper bag and tucked them into the crook of your arm, and waved goodbye. “Have a good’n, (Y/N). Or, should ah say James?” Mr. Leclair laughed, wheezing as he did, but returned the wave in kind.

Stepping outside afforded you a soft gust of cold air to your nose and you shivered, pulling up the scarf you had hanging around your neck so that it covered your nose. Jesse was faring much worse than you, it seemed, which made a fair amount of sense: no facial hair and no hat up here was murder on the sinuses.

“So uh…” You began shuffling down the sidewalk in front of the store. “What was that about? Like, I knew you at Harper, but we didn’t exactly hang out enough to get nicknames for it.”

He was busy nestling into the neck of his sweater while haphazardly holding his grocery bag, but he slid a glance at you, more wary than nervous, “It’s uh… just not my name. Since I got up here, I mean.”

You listened, but remained uncertain with the vagueness of his words.

Jesse sighed through his nose and licked his lips before immediately regretting it because of the cold, shuffling toward a powder-blue minivan but still talking, “P-people up here call me uh… call me Isaac.”

“Isaac?”

“Yeah.” He wiped his nose. “Michael Isaac.”

You could tell the further he talked about it, the more nervous and uncertain he sounded, so you just waved your hand dismissively and chuckled, “You can afford an apartment in Morningside _and_ two new first names? You did way better after you split outta Wynne than me.”

Jesse (Or, Isaac?) didn’t laugh, but he smiled a little before it faltered. He produced his keys from his pocket, almost dropped them, then gestured to the blue car and squinted against the sunlight. “Yea yea… guess I’ll see ya around, right?”

“No, I live in the woods.”  
  
He scoffed, but cracked a genuine smile, “Dude c’mon, I _know_ you weren’t this mean at Harper. Y-you were the kid everyone like, picked on and shit.”

“And _you_ weren’t this quiet.” You walked past him, continuing down the sidewalk but pausing as he got into his car, “Peace and quiet and lots of cold weather gives you time to stay inside and not have to deal with mean-ass kids anyway. “

“I guess.” He unlocked the car and slouched his groceries into the passenger seat over the center glovebox, “I am gonna see you around though, right? Like ya don’t live in the woods with meese’n’shit for real?”

You shook your head and repositioned your scarf, beginning to walk away. “Nah, I live up on Moonbrooke. Gonna walk home, ‘snot too far.” As you continued on, you paused again, “Do you remember my name, dude?”

“Y/N.” He dropped into his seat and his car shook with the weight. “I’ll see ya round. Maybe? You still talk all weird ‘n shit.”

“See ya around, Michael Isaac. Wear a hat next time, alright? Even if you can handle the cold, you’re gonna get sunburned.” You waved goodbye and walked down toward your apartment, and thought no more of the interaction for the rest of the day.

-

Encountering Jesse at the grocery store became more of a weekly occurrence, some weeks on and some weeks off. But Tuesday was usually grocery day for you, and apparently it was usually grocery day for him, so your paths more often than nought intersected. The small talk got easier, as it did with all people one knew from school and saw again after you’d flown into the adult world. He was still much quieter than you remembered, spoke less about weed and video games, and instead more about boring adult things like the weather and bad signal on his phone. Once _you_ started talking about video games and shows and music, he seemed to warm up and defrost a little more.

You were too polite to ask the myriad of questions you had: why he was all the way up here in little old Haines, why he’d changed his name, how he’d gotten so littered with scars, among others. You figured that you knew him better than you did, but you still didn’t know him well enough to start prying away at the carapace he’d so obviously built around himself. If he wanted to tell you, he’d tell you, and if he didn’t, then whatever. 

It was nice to have somebody to talk to besides your boss. 

You’d begun your walk home from work with your nose buried in your scarf again; you were a mail sorter for the only post office in town (Which was technically just a drugstore that the USPS delivered to). You weren’t a courier- the couriers were your coworkers who didn’t mind walking around on foot in the cold for however many hours in a day. Instead, you sorted the mail by complex and neighborhood and played janitor in the office until your boss gave you the ok to clock out. Your hours varied, some better and some worse.

You’d actually been sent home early today and decided to stop by the one cafe in town to get a cup of tea for the walk home. Lemon-leaf Cafe was a quaint little place, much like all of Haines- small towns were good for family run businesses, and you were glad that they’d managed to stick around so long. Your cup of tea acquired and honey and sugar properly mixed in, you stopped for perhaps your favorite part of every visit: to pet the owner’s dog, who she brought to work with her every day.

Sushi, the speckled white and orange mutt dog with one single floppy ear, was incredibly excited to have a visitor. The area in front of the cafe was a small gated area that Sushi had the rights to run around in, covered in astroturf and stray dog fluff; you sat inside on the ground with her and tossed a rope toy to the end of the pen, which she repeatedly fetched at high speed. She flopped down next to you and wiggled on her back with the wagging of her tail- she was barely more than a puppy, and you guessed part husky if she was so energetic, but you never asked the owner to find out. You were just happy enough to have a dog to pet after a couple of years with the only dogs in town working sleds for tourists who were passing through.

“Yo, Y/N.”

You looked up, only to see Mr. Michael Isaac bundled up to the teeth standing at the gate, apprehensive but much more curious. Sushi turned her head to look at him, but stayed on the ground and continued to wiggle all the while.

“Glad to see you’re taking my advice about the hats and such seriously, but I didn’t mean you had to look like a turtle.”

“Nah man, I’m usedta wearin’ layers. It’s just like… somethin’ you’re _‘sposed_ to do up here, I guess.” He opened the gate, and you were long forgotten as Sushi dashed forward and jumped at him.

He was not just startled, but frozen when she approached him at terminal velocity- he was much more jumpy than you’d remembered at Harper Middle, though by now you’d gotten used to it.

“Sushi!” Her ears pricked and she trotted back toward you, still looking back expectantly at the human pile of clothes at the door; you turned your eyes back to him and grinned, “No dogs in the ABQ?”

He cleared his throat uncomfortably, avoiding your gaze for a second. “Nah.”

You wilted a little bit; you still hadn’t figured out what exactly dampened his mood and what not to say, so you just threw it into the checkbook. _No mention of the ABQ._

“You want to pet her?” 

Isaac looked up, unable to hide the excitement that any given human would experience when offered to pet a dog, and he nodded but still walked forward cautiously. You covertly slipped your fingers under the dog’s collar and her little bandana, halting her when she tugged to try and jump at him again. He hesitantly held out one hand to let her smell, and Sushi softly licked his knuckles.

“Aw, fuckin’ sick.” He said quietly, ruffling the fur behind her ears.

“She’s just not trained yet, she doesn’t mean any harm.” You sipped at your tea and leaned against the fence where you’d been sitting, watching as Sushi’s energy began to build. “She’s gonna jump soon, start throwing toys.”

Isaac furrowed his eyebrows at you and said nothing, but followed your advice and tossed a well-worn chew toy- seeing the speed at which she catapulted to the other side of the enclosure gave him a little bit of pause. “Is it like, your dog?”

“She belongs to the owner of the tea shop, Mrs. Lincoln.” You jabbed your thumb to the window of the shop where the owner was fiddling with various kinds of pastries on the pie trolley she was trying so-desperately to keep operational. “Her name is Sushi.”

“Aright… aright, Sushi.” He slouched against the fence and slid down to sit next to you, both of your backs to the sun. Sushi returned with something that he hadn’t thrown, but he threw it anyway, and off she went again.

It got quiet again other than the banging and clicking inside of the shop, but it wasn’t awkward anymore- that was all you could ask for, you supposed. Meeting your middle school friend again, he seemed like a different person altogether with only a few glimpses of the overly-excitable, loud teenager that was the bane of your ears in homeroom. To be perfectly honest, you didn’t know how much he remembered you as a teenager either, so you figured this was a slightly-fresh restart. Not a complete reset, but you had a base amount of progress made- not as awkward as meeting a new person, but not like you’d known him your whole life either.

“Y/N? Yo, you good? Space cadet’n and shit?”

You snapped back to attention to see Sushi standing in front of you, and also putting her full weight onto one of your legs. You politely pushed her off and petted her head. “Just thinkin’. You get to do a lot of that up here.”

“Yeah.” 

There was a sad wistfulness in his voice, even though he only spoke a single word. You thought for a moment while you drank your tea, getting to the bottom where all the honey had settled.

“You alright, Isaac?” It had no specifics, more a general question with a politely inquisitive tone. 

He didn’t answer, settling on petting Sushi as she flopped down, out of breath from running around. He scratched the center or her forehead between her eyes, “You can call me ‘Jesse’, I guess.”

You raised your eyebrows, surprised. “Hm?”

His tone was hushed and he didn’t look at you, but that didn’t bother you too much; you didn’t like making eye contact either. “You can like… call me Jesse. You ain’t gotta. But-cha can. Not like… loud, though.”

In all honesty, you had no idea what this meant. You figured that, perhaps, it was a level of trust, so you didn’t ask questions, but the significance was something you couldn’t put your finger on.

“Alright.” That was all you said in response, and it seemed to be enough, because for the rest of the time you spent at the cafe, you were both almost completely silent.

Except for Sushi, of course.

-

It was a knock on the door that woke you up. You started from your doze on the couch, closing your mouth and feeling slightly-dehydrated just like everybody else that takes an unexpected nap. The knock came again, prompting you to both stand unbalanced and to look at the clock; it was 8pm and pitch black outside. Apprehension twisted your stomach and you were suddenly glad you hadn’t said anything to indicate that you were home.

“Yo, Y/N, it’s Je-J… It’s Isaac. C’mon, it’s cold as _shit_ out here.”

You breathed a sigh of relief and shambled up to your door. It was toasty enough in your apartment, but there also wasn’t a lot of space to heat up- it was a one-bedroom that was barely a bedroom, furnished with knick-knacks and pictures and all manner of stuff that you liked. It was a typical apartment for younger people, you supposed, but it was home. A perfunctory look through the peephole confirmed that yes, it was Jesse Michael Isaac, and you unchained and unlocked the door to let him inside. He emerged from the chilly darkness outside and shuffled into your living room, wearing a black beanie and what you estimated to be about seven layers of clothing. You wordlessly pointed at his shoes, which were covered in snow and slurry, and then at the area behind the door.

Sitting back down on your couch and rubbing your eyes, you yawned, “Dude, what’s up? It's bedtime for people like me who work minimum wage.”

Jesse shucked his slurry-covered shoes and stood a little bit away from the doorway, rubbing his arms and shivering. “My h-heating’s shot.” There was something in his words that suggested that this was either only part or none of the actual reason.

Regardless, you furrowed your brow, concerned, “Why didn’t you call?”

“I did. And you picked up, but like, I think you were asleep before you said anything.” Jesse stood awkwardly by the couch, as if asking permission to sit down- of course, you gave it to him, but were puzzled as to why he didn’t just sit.

You went silent for a moment and began feeling around the couch for your phone. Finding it under the table, you gave an abashed chuckle when you checked the call history to indicate that you indeed had started a call and let it peeter out. You slid it onto your coffee table and leaned back into your couch. 

“My bad, man. Long hours at the pharmacy today. I conked as soon as I got home.”  
  


“I can fuckin’ tell.” He tried to sound joking, but there was an underline to his words that indicated… stress? Perhaps annoyance?

You frowned, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “Look dude, I didn’t ignore you on purpose, please don’t get snippy with me. I was asleep- if I’d have known your heating was shot, I would have invited you over anyway.”

Jesse actually looked at you, mildly panicked, “Nah, no-no-no, that’s _not_ what I meant, okay? Words came out wrong’n shit.”

“What did you mean?”

He sighed and his eyes darted around the room as if trying to find a place to settle. He peeled the beanie off his head and held it in his hands, feeling the fabric and choosing his next words carefully, “I was worried, ‘sall, y’know? I don’t take uh… dropped calls too well.”

You both stood in silence for a moment as you gathered your thoughts, choosing your next words carefully- he was irritable, but you guessed more because he was worried rather than angry with you on any deeper level. Jesse sheepishly pushed himself deeper into his side of the couch, staring tightly at the blank television screen on the other side of the room.

After a few more seconds of silence, you offered cautiously, “I’ve got like… abandonment problems. Dropped calls, read messages, radio silence… stuff like that makes it go crazy. Is it… is it like that?”

He breathed in and seemed to be melting into the environment, but in a way more mimicking overstimulation than relaxation. “Yeah. Close enough. ‘Splains it, I guess.”

You sat on your side of the couch and held your phone, tapping your nails over the screen and leaning against the arm. Admittedly, you weren’t sure what to do, as nobody had ever shuffled into your apartment at such a late hour of the night while being equal parts concerned and annoyed with you. He was refusing to make eye contact, which was par for the course, but he was obviously thinking about something else that was eating up what little focus he had.

“You want to sleep here?” You asked, noticing that your leg had been bouncing rather aggressively.

Jesse sighed through his nose, “Uh yeah. Would be good. I kinda shoved my way in anyway, yo.”

You chuckled in response and rocked yourself out of your place on the couch. “At least you’re honest about it. If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t let you go back home if your heating was shot anyway.”

He half-heartedly laughed. “Yeah…”

“Jesse?”

“... Yeah?”

“Is your heating really shot?”

He didn’t answer, instead fiddling with the pulled thread on the upholstery and acting as though you hadn’t asked the question at all. Weary but touched, you shambled into your modest little kitchen and dug through your cabinets. Was a dropped call really so worrisome that he drove all the way to Moonbrook at 8 o’clock at night? That was more _intriguing_ than anything. Jesse’s behaviors were… odd, to say the least. You tried not to dwell on it so much, as you were definitely not who you were in middle and highschool either, but the total and complete change in tone was noticeable. You had a feeling that the wicked smattering of scars across his face had something to do with it, and you would be lying to say that you weren’t both curious and concerned about how he acquired them. You’d managed to hold your tongue for this long, you could hold it a little longer.

You returned to the couch carrying two mugs of hot-chocolate, and set one down on the coffee-table in front of your friend, “Sorry, it’s the cheap kind. Swiss Miss is expensive.”

Jesse seemed mildly stunned, “Thanks, yo.” He picked the mug up and palmed it softly before holding it in both of his hands, something you were also guilty of doing. 

“No problem, man.”

“Y’ever notice how like… old people get mad when ya say ‘no problem’? They get so offended, it’s like you rolled up too their car, called ‘em a bitch, and pissed in the gas tank.”

You looked up, surprised- it was perhaps the most he’d ever spoken to you in a full string. “Jesse, have you done that?”

“Well, not the second part.”

A laugh escaped you, “Yea, that sounds like something you’d do.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” He scoffed, mildly offended.

“You used to say ‘bitch’ every other word. It was like.. Echolalia or something.” You took a sip of your hot chocolate- it was… not the best, but it was warm. “Though, to be fair, I’ve heard you say it once since we started talking again… just now.”

Jesse smiled and looked away, shaking his head lightly, “You can’t just tell a guy he looks like the kinda person who’d piss in a gas tank and then expect ‘em to be chill with it. I’m a changed man, real gentle-like, yo.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, “I said you’d call a geezer who cut you off in traffic a bitch to their face. You saying you’d piss in the gas tank? That’s on you.”

He opened his mouth as though he were about to speak, and then shut it, but he was still smiling a little at the very least.

“Want to watch a movie?” You inquired while getting up again, this time crossing to the other side of the room where you knelt in front of your TV and next to the shelf where you kept your DVDs.

“Uh, yea. What you got?”

“Let’s see… we got uhh Nightmare Before Christmas, The Incredibles, Shrek-”

Jesse scoffed again, but you could see in the reflection of the TV screen that he was looking over and trying to peer around your shoulder, “Why you got so many kids’ movies ‘n shit?”

You waved your hand at him and pointed at the few ‘adult’ films you had, of which there were perhaps four. “Kid movies are good, man. Adult movies are boring. Anyway, we got Coraline, Ratatouille-”

“Ratatouille.”

“Ratatouille?”

“Ratatouille.” Jesse sat resolutely back on the cushion of the couch, looking satisfied.

“Ratatouille it is, then.” You set the movie up, bypassing the ‘this DVD is enhanced with Disney’s fastplay’ screen as quickly as possible, and set off to the nearby closet. You pulled a sherpa blanket down, as well as a well-used and limp pillow, and tossed them at Jesse on the couch.

He held his mostly-empty mug of hot chocolate as far up as he could bracing for the impact, and managed to keep everything in the cup. “YO, WARN A GUY. I can’t be spillin’ shit, I don’t have any more clothes.”

Flopping back to your side of the couch against your equally-well-worn throw pillow, you said nothing and looked pointedly at the screen where the rat voiced by Patton Oswalt was currently narrating the situation. Jesse set his mug down and put his arms beneath the blanket, also becoming enthralled by the movie as it played. You hadn’t seen him so calm since he’d been here- he was always nervous and on edge, quivering like a chihuahua (Though, by all accounts, this could be because he was cold). Now, he seemed more relaxed than you’d seen him since you’d begun talking to each other.

About half-an-hour into the movie, you felt your eyes getting heavy again, and your knees were starting to hurt from sitting sideways for so long. You stretched and tilted your neck from side to side, “Jesse, are we at that level of friendship where I can put my legs on you?”

He looked over, but seemed equally sleepy and nonplussed, “Yea, man, whatever.”

“Cool.”

You stretched out and snuck your feet under the blanket, leaning back against your side of the couch with your arms crossed and your head resting on the back. You noticed that Jesse was actually asleep before you were, snoring softly while the movie played.

-

-

-

He’d been here for almost a year now, and you still hadn’t been to his apartment. You didn’t particularly mind, as you were comfortable enough being in your own space or at the cafe, but it was one of the million things you noted since he’d shown his face in little old Haines.

A police-car was a rather rare occurrence- sure, there were officers in the town, but most of the time they were seen and not heard. In the case of the police car, it was unfortunately both seen and heard, although more of the latter than the former. It showed up towards around 2 PM on a Tuesday, of all things, and had spent its time that wasn’t spent wailing parked in front of various places in Morningside Apartments. You passed by them sometimes whenever you were bored and decided to go for a walk, but until recently, you never saw anything really happening. 

Tuesday, it seemed, was a decent change of pace, as you were nose deep in a book about small-town spooks and what could possibly be a cult, you realized that Morningside’s apartment parking lot was absolutely deserted. Other than the cop car, there wasn’t a single vehicle in the place. You held your finger between the pages and leaned over the chain-link fence, peering around- didn’t Jesse live here? The snow was completely undisturbed, like it had been empty for the past day or so, but he’d texted you this morning as though he was still in town.

As you leaned over the fence, one of the doors on the cop car popped open, and you saw a fellow who was in no shape to be in this weather peer over at you. As you glanced back, suddenly ten times as nervous as you had been, you saw that the decal on the side of the car read ‘Dalton’s Post’- this guy was definitely not local, but if he was from Dalton’s Post, he should have at least been acquainted with the weather. You froze when you saw the pistol on his hip, your teeth clamping down and your back becoming tense.

“You alright? Your car’s off, I’m sure the office would let you in.” It left your mouth before you could stop yourself, something utterly stupid to make you look less suspicious, even if you weren’t really doing anything wrong. Even though that was the point, god did you hate the way it sounded.

The officer’s response was thankfully short and curt. “Fine, thanks.” And he hurriedly dropped back into his car and shut the door tightly.

You walked back to your own apartments quickly and tensely, pretending to read and not quite managing to keep up the facade. You took out your phone as soon as you were in what could be considered the ‘main’ part of town.

_Y/N: Hey, Michael, you there?_

You didn’t put the phone away, instead opting to keep it in your hand. A few passersby looked at you oddly, but you paid them no mind. It wasn’t as though you had any particular reason to currently be afraid of being arrested, but seeing a cop car in Haines with your own two eyes hit you in a very unpleasant way.

Your phone buzzed as you rounded a corner.

_Michael Isaac: Yea, y_

You looked up briefly to see how far the sun had set-it had now officially become dusk, but you were close enough to being home that it didn’t bother you too much. It wasn’t as if there weren’t other people out and about, you had no reason to be so nervous.

_(Y/N): Come over please_

In the nervous haze that had overtaken you, you’d made your own way home in record time. _What could cops from Dalton’s Post want in Haines? We’re so isolated up here- what if it’s something dangerous? It’s gotta be if they sent some stiff who wouldn’t normally come within a hundred miles of the place._

Numbly, you shut your door behind you and turned on every light in your living room (Which was only two, but still), shucking off your outer layers and sliding your phone across the counter. You wrangled a blanket to wrap around your shoulders for security and paced across your horrible shag carpet. There was already a slight flattening of the fibers down the middle and slightly to the right formed from previous pacing, sometimes stressed and sometimes from when you spoke to yourself like you were making a video essay or doing a stand-up comedy routine.

_Oh man, what could it be… the crime rate here has been kinda bad, I think? Are we getting a car put out here for just-in-case situations? No, no, they wouldn’t have sent that dude, he didn’t even look like he was from up north. There have been a lot of bear attacks… one did mess up a couple of sled dogs really bad a few months ago… wait, no, a cop can’t do anything for bear crimes._

In your pacing, you nearly missed the knock on your door- a glance at the clock told you that after getting lost in your own head, ten minutes had passed quickly by. A glance through the peephole on the door told you that it was Jesse (But who else could it possibly be?), and you let him inside immediately.

He seemed startled by your mildly-panicked demeanor and glanced around at your brightly-lit apartment. “Yo, everythin’ aright? Ya look like someone stuck a worm in your ear.”

You closed and double-locked the door, complete with slider-lock that was surprisingly effective. _Why_ **_are_ ** _you freakin’ out about this? It’s just a bad feeling. You have bad feelings all the time. You take_ **_pills_ ** _for your bad feelings._

Jesse snapped his fingers near your ear a few times- you’d gone back to shuffling in a line across the carpet. He was looking you up and down, equal parts bewildered and uneasy.

“I uh. Hm.”

You scratched your scalp and moved around like you were looking for something, although you weren’t. Sitting down back on the couch and crushing yourself into a corner, you peered at Jesse and jerked your head to the other end.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? You’re freakin’ me out.” Jesse shifted from foot to foot uneasily.

He shed his jacket and held it in front of his body, almost like he was avoiding sitting down.

Your heart pounded in your chest while you tried in vain to meter your breathing. A headache was blooming in the back of your skull- from past experiences, you knew it was stress related. Looking at Jesse whilst appearing absolutely miserable, you tried to muster up the courage to speak.

“There’s a cop.” You admitted, your voice thin and whistly. 

Jesse’s looked at you, perplexed, “A cop? What’s a cop doin’ out here?” Though his voice was even, unusually so, you thought you could just barely see his pupils grow pinpoint. 

“I don’t know. Robberies? Hate crimes? Just fuckin’ shit up? I dunno, man. Last time we saw a cop up here, someone’s kid got charged by a caribou.” You nestled into your blanket and closed your eyes.

“Why are y-” He scoffed and sighed hard, pinching between his eyebrows. “Ya almost gave me a heart attack- I’m like, old now, ya can’t be doin’ that!”

The genuine agitation in his voice made you flinch. You were already teetering and feeling anxious, but the sound of a man yelling always activated a deep panic response in you. There were a million reasons that could explain why, but you couldn’t allocate the brain-space necessary to pick any of them at the moment.

Jesse shuffled nearby and sighed again, though less irritated this time. Though you could technically ‘see’ when he sat down, you only registered the action when you felt the weight shift on the couch and dip towards the other side that you never used.

“Uh… you want we should do the noises thing?” He asked softly, resting his elbows on his knees.

The question registered after a few seconds, and you nodded.

“M’kay.” Jesse glanced around the apartment while squinting like a dad at a tourist attraction, “Mhm… aright. Five noises, yo. What are they?”

You tried to stretch your ears past the tinnitus that always settled there during a panic attack and considered the sounds of your living space for a moment, “You.”

Jesse nodded and scoffed through his nose, “Yeah, yeah, I’m the freebie. What else?”

“I can hear the appliances.” Normally, hearing the electricity that came from appliances like fridges, your tv, your laptop and whatnot wouldn’t count. As it turns out, most people couldn’t hear them. Jesse did, though- like you, he had ADHD, and unlike you, his wasn’t medicated. 

_He can probably_ **_extra_ ** _hear it,_ you thought.

“Ok. That’s two.”

“I can hear… the neighbor’s kid upstairs.”

“What’s his name?” The question didn’t really matter, instead sounding more like a statement.

“Edmund.” 

“Three.”

You swallowed and found the energy to open your eyes back up. Jesse wasn’t looking at you, but instead investigating all of the stuff on your wall and shelves as best he could without getting up. He’d been here so often you’d have thought he’d seen everything by now, but he still seemed interested.

“I can hear my heartbeat. Too much.” 

Jesse’s leg started bouncing as he ran a hand over the top of his head- his hair had tried to grow back out a few times since his arrival, but he always ended up buzzing it short again. You thought that if he let it grow, he might be able to cover up some of the scars. Hell, if he let it grow, he might have looked more like his middle-school self again. Admittedly, no amount of hair growing out would cover the fact that he was no longer a skinny weed-smoking teenager who could eat three Big Macs and still not have broken a sweat. Besides, who were you to tell somebody how to cut their hair?

Jesse interrupted your train of thought, “One more.”

You paused. There weren’t a lot of loud things in the apartment, in all honesty. You hadn’t turned a lot of things on when you’d arrived, just your lights. You strained your ears slightly, attempting to pick one last sound up.

“.... The wind. It’s not loud tonight but I hear it.”

“Good. ‘S five things. I’ll even let the me freebie… be. The me freebie be.” He seemed to stumble on his words at the last part, furrowing his brow. He looked up at you with tired blue eyes, waiting patiently.

You shifted in your blanket and looked at the drawn-curtains in front of the window as you spoke, “I’m not good with cops. I’m worse with guns. I know that’s like… dumb, coming from a square like me. Er, the first part, anyway.”

“... and?”

“And what?”

Jesse sat up and threw his jacket to the floor, slouching into his corner of the couch, “Ya didn’t sound like you were through talkin’.”

His voice was quiet and cautious sounding, as if he were attempting to coax an animal out of hiding and was afraid to upset it. You swallowed, scratching the back of your hand.

_Might as well be honest with him at this point._

“... They were in your complex. And um.” Your voice hitched a little, but you found it once again, “I-I’m gonna be real with you, Jesse, your whole situation is sketchy. Like… ‘I wouldn’t want a cop near my house’ sketchy.”

He didn’t say anything, but he was looking in your direction. His entire body seemed to be taut.

You continued, “I mean, you just show up here lookin’ fifty years old, covered in scars, all quiet and twitchy and shit. Y-you don’t go by ‘Jesse’, all your IDs are weird, and you don’t want to talk about Albuquerque at _all_.”

His eyes were on the carpet and he was grabbing at the fabric of your poor couch.

The headache was trying to come back, but you did your best to keep a level head- your shoulders quivered hard enough that it was moving the back cushion, “I-I’m. I-I’m not gonna lie, Jesse, I worry about you, ya know? L-like I’m glad you’re up here, I’m happy to have a friend, but dude, you haven’t told me anything.”

The longer you talked, the faster the words seemed to come out. You dry-swallowed and tried to meter your breath again. You wanted to scold yourself for ripping off this bandage so fast, but you weren’t sure how to stop the faucet now that it was untapped. 

You looked up from your blanket shroud at Jesse, trying to maintain a firm tone of voice, “You don’t… you don’t have to tell me. You don’t like… owe me that. But your complex was deserted except for the cop, and I was worried about you, ya know? There’s only so many people up here in Haines. I don’t think I could handle it the best if one of the four good ones was like… suddenly carried out in cuffs.”

Jesse’s jaw was so tight that a vein was standing out on his head. He’d since abandoned grasping at the couch’s fabric and was now just picking at the threads with his leg bouncing furiously. He glanced up at you- the expression was one of caution, perplexity, and mild disbelief. You could tell he was chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You gave me a heart attack.” He leaned his head forward and rested it in his hand, his lips trying to pull away from his teeth. He sighed.

A cramp tried to form in your left thigh from how hard you were attempting to keep your legs tucked up close to your body. Wincing, you stretched it out- Jesse seemed not to appreciate how close your toes were to grabbing his pocket, but he didn’t move.

“I’m tellin’ you this so you’ll know. So you can like. Not worry as much, aright?” his voice was flat, pointed.

Your eyes opened wide and your head snapped up to look at him- he wasn’t looking back at you.

“Don’t ask me about it after this. Please.”

A cold bolt of electricity rattled up your spine. _No more wondering after this, right?_ The only thing you could manage to say was “Okay.”

He breathed in through his nose and wiped his face in his hands, tapping his fingers against his cheek. His voice was nearly imperceptible it was so quiet, “You uh… ou remember how before you left Wynn, kids started sayin’ I uh. I did meth?”

**Meth.** Though his tone was gentle, almost flat, you could practically taste disdain radiating off of him. You nodded, leaning forward and scooting an inch or so forward, straining your ears.

Jesse stared off into the corner at nothing while his leg went absolutely ballistic- he looked like he was mimicking chewing gum. “I did. But I didn’t just start usin’ it. I cooked it.”

Your stomach twisted uneasily- you kind of figured he dabbled in some drugs, not that weed was too much of one, but cooking meth wasn’t exactly what you expected to hear. You glanced at the scars on his face, his twitching, but what struck you most was how _tired_ he looked. Jesse looked utterly exhausted, like he could drop at any moment.

“So… back in Al- … back home, you… made meth? And… what, did you get involved in like… turf wars or somethin’?”

Jesse scoffed but his pseudo-merriment was short-lived. He glanced at you for a second before his gaze slowly crawled back across the room. He opened his mouth to speak again but seemed unable to, the skin around his eyes suddenly puffy and red. Thin tears started plummeting from his face and onto his lap.

You gasped quietly, scooting closing and pausing just short of being able to touch your shoulders together. Jesse scoffed and tsked, harshly wiping the tears from his face and sniffling. 

“Dude, dude, dude, if it’s that upsetting, like-” You said, softly, “Don’t tell me. Like, yea, I get worried about you. You’re runnin’ from some stuff, but you’ve been doin’ pretty good up here, right? Don’t tell me if it hurts, man. It’s not worth it. I’ll live.”

He swiped the arm of his sweater over his eyes and cheeks again- the skin there looked red from the rough material of the sleeve in addition to the initial pinkness that came from crying. He tried to inhale sharply through his nose and ended up coughing hard. You gently tapped him twice on the right shoulder- shorthand for ‘I’m about to touch you’. Patting between his shoulders gently as he coughed and sputtered, you glanced at him out of the corner of your eye.

You’d be lying if you said that the reaction hadn’t deeply scared you, but you were able to sequester it far enough away to process later. _The Parent-Friend Override comes in handy sometimes…. Most of the time, actually. Especially when he needs ketchup but doesn’t want to bother the server or something._

Jesse shuddered but managed to catch his breath. He was squinting so hard he almost looked as though he’d been stung or bitten by something. “Thanks.”

You nodded, mute.

He gulped and his Adam’s apple bobbed. You figured you were done talking for the night- that was fine, you had less and less energy to expend with each passing second. Retracting your hand, you were preparing to get up and retrieve the spare blankets and pillows you started keeping for guests (Currently, your only guest was Jesse, but that was fine) when he tapped your shoulder.

Something about the way he was sitting with his back hunched over, his head low, the wrinkles in his clothes making him look baggier than they were- he almost looked like his old self. It was no ridiculously-oversized name-brand hoodie or enormous pair of pants, but it was like his energy changed from lethargic to simply tired and out of things to say. He glanced at you and crossed his arms over his chest, slumped against the back of the couch.

With a sigh, he asked, “You uh. You ever heard of Heisenberg?”

-

-

-

He slept there that night, of course.

You weren’t going to send him back out into the cold into god knows where, and he spent the night quite often anyway. Your headache returned with a vengeance, but you couldn’t blame it for doing so after what he told you.

You hadn’t known Walter White during your brief time at Wynn. He was a chemistry teacher for the grade above yours, and you left one year in. You thought you recalled seeing him in pep-rallies or maybe in the hallway, but only in the same way you saw other teachers you didn’t know. He was just a boring looking middle-aged teacher who wore too many sweaters. 

_Anybody can do super fucked up shit. You knew that. You always knew that._

The name ‘Heisenberg’ was heard only once or twice, a scant mention of it on a local news station that gave it passing mention at the very best. No wonder the guy Jesse paid to take him away chose Haines- it seemed almost the tail end of the world to New Mexico.

All of it seemed so otherworldly, so unbelievable- the cartel, the train heist, being held hostage in a hole in the ground for six months. It was almost incomprehensible to you in your quaint, cramped, homey little apartment in lonely old Haines where you spent your time sorting mail and running errands and watching tourists pass by in cars that never stopped in your town. 

You believed him, either way. The ghostly, haunted look in his eyes, the scars across his face, his behaviors- everything checked out.

He was laying on his side on the couch with his back pressed against the cushions. Though his eyes were closed, you could tell he wasn’t asleep. You’d since turned off the lights in the living room and were instead just processing information and trying to figure out what to do next, if anything.

Neither of you had said that much after he finished his recounting of events. He seemed too exhausted to even think of speaking anymore, so you’d gotten his blankets and pillows for the couch and decided to bed down until morning. Things always seemed to look better then.

_Thank you for telling me._

**_Yeah… no problem._ **

You huffed, thinking about it now on your own end of the couch, _No problem. Sure, no problem._

His eyes opened and the hair on the back of your neck stood up. Your head snapped away and you stammered, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I was just… thinking.”

Jesse sighed through his nose and waved his hand dismissively before sinking back into his nest. He went quiet for a moment and asked, weakly, “Hey, (Y/N)?”

“Mhm?”

“Can… god, it sounds weird.”

You turned your head and blinked incredulously. _You told me you were kept in a hole for six months, unless you ask me to do something like lick your finger for no reason, the fuck would I say no for?_

You didn’t feel as though you had the room to make a comment like that yet, so you kept it to yourself.

Jesse cleared his throat and turned over onto his back, his left hand brushing the floor. “Can you like… lay on me? For like, the pressure ‘n stuff?”

“Is that all?” You couldn’t help but snort, “The way you were talking, it sounded like you were gonna ask me to do something _actually_ weird. Like eat a banana with the peel on.”

You saw his head snap up in the darkness- his grin was weak and mildly sarcastic, but it was there. “Izzat a yes or… are you gonna find and eat an unpeeled banana?”

Gathering your own blanket around your shoulders and leaving one of your pillows back on the other end so that you could stick your foot under it in the event that you got cold, you flopped unceremoniously onto his legs. Jesse wheezed and jerked back a little, but settled when you plonked your other pillow lower on his chest and rested there. If there were more of a size disparity between the both of you, the angle might have been uncomfortable for your lower back, but as it stood now, it would work for a cramped couch.

You breathed out and closed your eyes, tucking your arms under your pillow and across his chest. You could just barely feel his heartbeat through your wrist- you couldn’t tell whether he had a slight arrhythmia or if you were just bad at missing beats. You figured it could be both.

“Thanks.” Jesse said quietly into the darkness.

“No problem, man.” You replied in a mumble while digging your foot underneath the pillow on the other end of the couch.

Things grew quiet and dim, almost cozy. You daresay it might have been cozy if you had a fireplace or had a lit candle perched somewhere. But the wind outside and the gentle sound of breathing were enough to nearly lull you to sleep.

“... (Y/N)?”

“Yeah?”

“If I told you I had to pee, how mad would you be?”

**Author's Note:**

> This took entirely too long, oh my god. 
> 
> I started it shortly after the release of El Camino, and I would get to it in spurts. Sometimes you just wanna... be friends with Jesse Pinkman...
> 
> I contemplated making it into a short bunch of chapters, but I figured I wouldn't risk not being able to finish another larger story.
> 
> Definitely written for a dear friend of mine who I met through roleplaying Jesse!
> 
> Cheers!  
> -Bea 🦜
> 
> EDIT: we are dating now sjknfsd


End file.
